According to estimates by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, electric vehicles could drive a 38% increase in U.S. electricity consumption by 2050. This demand will bring new revenue streams for electric utilities, but it also requires upgrades to the distribution system and the implementation of load management strategies to ensure that vehicle charging helps maintain grid reliability rather than overloading local power systems. Multiple experts have expressed this view.

To identify priority areas for grid upgrades, the timing of renewable energy procurement, and to ensure customer satisfaction, electric utilities are increasingly collaborating with various participants in the automotive industry, including vehicle manufacturers, car dealers, and ride-hailing service providers.

"Because we don't manufacture cars or sell cars, we deeply understand that partnerships are crucial," said Nadia El Mallakh, Vice President of Clean Transportation and Strategic Partnerships at Xcel Energy.

"These two groups never needed to interact before electric vehicles came along," said Joel Levin, Executive Director of Plug In America. Automakers and electric utilities "have now become long-term partners, whether both parties like it or not," he added. The decisions automakers make "have a huge impact on electric utilities, and vice versa."

"We are seeing an increase in joint ventures and collaborations across various fields," noted Leilani Gonzalez, Policy Director at the Zero Emission Transportation Association. "Electric utilities are at a stage where they are seeking decarbonization, and this is the path forward. They are ensuring they have a modern grid capable of handling load fluctuations."

To gain a deeper understanding of how electric utilities and the automotive industry are collaborating, Utility Dive developed a partnership tracker and spoke with five electric utilities about their specific efforts. These collaborations cover topics such as managed charging, vehicle-to-grid integration, matching demand with renewable energy supply, and ensuring a smooth transition for customers to electric transportation.

PG&E and BMW expand collaboration to explore V2X technology

Electric vehicles currently account for about 7% of new car sales, but growing consumer interest and state and federal standards are expected to drive rapid adoption. President Joe Biden wants electric vehicles to make up 50% of new car sales by 2030. This means electric utilities will face a steep growth curve in electricity demand from the transportation sector, and higher peak loads could lead to reliability issues.

"From the utility's perspective, you want the charging process to be smooth, not with large peaks," Levin said. But automakers are producing electric vehicles with more power, higher battery capacity, and faster charging speeds. A Level 2 home charger can draw up to 19 kilowatts, which means that if not managed properly, a few electric vehicles in the same neighborhood could create a "huge demand surge," he said.

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) began a smart charging pilot with BMW in 2015, with initial features that were "relatively basic," recalled Adam Langton, Energy Services Manager at BMW North America.

"We need these kinds of partnerships to make this work."

— Amy Costadone, Lead Product Manager at Pacific Gas and Electric

"We started with demand response events, initially just curtailing vehicle charging load, and then we began handling more complex matters—actually assessing the impact on local distribution by simulating scenarios of vehicle response to signals within a specific community," Langton said.

In May of this year, the two companies announced they would expand their collaboration to study the potential of electric vehicles feeding power back to the grid or supplying electricity to homes and other buildings. Industry interest in vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology is growing, as electric utilities view electric vehicles as resources similar to mobile distributed energy resources.

"We need these kinds of partnerships to make this work," said Amy Costadone, Lead Product Manager at PG&E. The utility is also collaborating with Ford and General Motors on bidirectional charging technology.

Costadone said that research partnerships are "crucial" for using electric vehicles as grid assets. "If we want this technology to be scalable, not just applicable to one electric vehicle manufacturer, we need all parties to benefit," she said.

BMW and PG&E plan to conduct a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) field trial at BMW's facility in Mountain View, California, and test other V2X applications at PG&E's Applied Technology Services Laboratory in San Ramon.

"We typically each bear our own costs and divide the different activities," Langton said.

"We need to understand how customers truly want to use this technology," Costadone said. "I am optimistic about our existing partnerships; the technology will eventually mature. From an engineering perspective, achieving this is possible."

Con Edison and GM Energy test new technologies

In New York City, Con Edison has multiple partnerships that allow it to test and deploy new equipment connecting electric vehicles to the grid. In October of this year, the utility announced it would collaborate with GM Energy, a newly formed energy management division of General Motors, to test how electric vehicle chargers can track energy usage and charging behavior without requiring a separate meter.

"This is more of a convenience arrangement," said Joe Morreale, Manager of Electric Vehicle Demonstration Projects and Managed Charging at Con Edison. "Both parties have things they want to learn, test, and experiment with that cannot be done independently."

Con Edison wants to gain a deeper understanding of GM's hardware to "grasp its capabilities and understand its potential as a distributed energy resource," he said. In turn, this collaboration provides GM with access to test data and real-world grid operating conditions.

"Both parties have things they want to learn, test, and experiment with that cannot be done independently."

— Joe Morreale, Manager of Electric Vehicle Demonstration Projects and Managed Charging at Con Edison

"This is truly an opportunity for both parties to learn from each other's expertise and develop products that serve the interests of end customers," Morreale said.

Con Edison is also collaborating with the FLO charging network and the City of New York to install curbside chargers and study their usage and how public charging can drive electric vehicle adoption in the most populous city in the U.S. Whether the entities involved in electric vehicle collaborations are public or private, "the overall goals are largely the same," Morreale said. "Both utilities and third parties recognize that collaboration and information sharing bring more benefits than acting independently."

In the case of curbside charging, FLO brings expertise in electric vehicle charging equipment, while the city holds the franchise rights to the streets.

"Therefore, we are able to install hardware on city streets—which is not typically a place where we can install equipment," Morreale said.

"It's a perfect combination," he said. Private companies provide the technology, the city provides the "laboratory," and the utility contributes data, project management, and execution capabilities. "This is not something any single party could accomplish alone, and we are very satisfied with the results so far."

Dominion Energy maintains close collaboration with electric school bus dealer

Dominion Energy has multiple partnerships in the electric vehicle space, but the "largest and most well-implemented" is its electric school bus program and its collaboration with dealer Sonny Merryman, said Kate Staples, Director of Electrification at the utility.

Dominion Energy launched the program in 2019 through a competitive bidding process and selected Virginia-based fleet transportation dealer Sonny Merryman to deliver 50 electric school buses starting in 2020. Sonny Merryman also sells the necessary charging equipment to school districts and assists in supporting the installation of that equipment, said Whitney Kopanko, Electric Vehicle Program Manager and Marketing Director at the company.

The program is divided into two phases. In the first phase, Dominion Energy installs, owns, and maintains the charging infrastructure for school districts, while also owning the battery in the buses, Staples said.

Because electric school buses are still more expensive than diesel buses, "we needed to provide a financial mechanism to help school districts cross that threshold," Staples said. "So, the school district pays for the traditional portion of the bus, and we pay the difference, and in return we own the battery."

"At the end of the agreement with the school district, we own the battery and can remove it from the bus to use as stationary energy storage," she added.

The last of the 50 buses covered by Dominion Energy's initial tender was delivered in 2021, but Sonny Merryman "continues to work very closely with Dominion Energy on charger installations," Kopanko said.

"We work together on site design and charger installation—our sales staff and service personnel work alongside the Dominion Energy team," Kopanko said. Both parties conduct site visits to discuss customer locations, needs, and how the dealer and utility can support those expectations.

"Historically, many of our fleet customers are high-intensity energy users. They are truly complex electricity users."

— Kate Staples, Director of Electrification at Dominion Energy

"Historically, many of our fleet customers are high-intensity energy users. They are truly complex electricity users," Staples said. As school districts transition to electric school buses, "we want to ensure we strengthen our relationships with them and ensure their needs are met from a power supply perspective," she said.

"This is exactly where the partnership with the dealer is key. Because the dealer understands the needs of these customers," Staples said. Sonny Merryman "has played an important role in connecting the utility with customers and ensuring customers receive the education they need."

Colorado: Xcel Energy's unique regulatory partnership path

In Colorado, Xcel Energy uses a unique regulatory mechanism to quickly advance research pilots and partnerships, El Mallakh said. The Public Utilities Commission approved a portfolio for the utility that allows it to launch programs through a 60-day notice process.

"This is a $10 million program to support collaboration, research, and innovation in the electric vehicle ecosystem," she said. The utility is running more than six partnerships through this portfolio and has proposed a similar mechanism in Minnesota.

"It's like a simplified filing; the process is quite streamlined," she said. The 60-day notice document outlines the collaboration's goals, Xcel's investment, and the resources brought by the partner.

In one of these projects, Xcel is partnering with Colorado CarShare to study how to reduce the upfront and operating costs of supporting car-sharing services in underserved communities. Through this nearly $2.5 million program, Xcel will provide rebates to lower the purchase cost of electric vehicles in the program, perform upfront work for charging infrastructure, and provide charging equipment to multiple partners, including the Boulder County Housing Authority, the Town of Breckenridge, Colorado Mountain College, and the University of Colorado.

Peninsula Clean Energy leverages ride-hailing services for grid data

Energy suppliers that are not distribution system owners are also building partnerships to address electric vehicle growth.

Peninsula Clean Energy, a community choice aggregator operating in San Mateo County, California, aims to provide 100% clean energy by 2025. The county has about 45,000 electric vehicles, representing about 34% of new car purchases, said Phillip Kobernick, Senior Transportation Program Manager at the agency.

PG&E handles power delivery, but under California's community choice aggregation model, this supplier is responsible for ensuring the power supply.

"The key issue we face is time-of-day matching of renewable energy," Kobernick said. "We want to provide 100% renewable energy every hour of the day. But there are a few hours that are more challenging... If there is a large-scale DC fast charging peak at 5 or 6 p.m. every day, it will make that challenge even greater."

In 2021, Peninsula Clean Energy partnered with Flexdrive, an independently managed subsidiary of Lyft, exchanging grid data for subsidized vehicle leases. Peninsula Clean Energy subsidizes the lease cost of 100 electric vehicles that drivers can rent from Flexdrive, ensuring their lease costs are the same as hybrid vehicles, and provides free charging.

"This arrangement is designed to deliver multiple benefits," Kobernick said. "We want to understand how electric vehicles actually perform in high-mileage services: whether drivers like them, how they charge, and what barriers exist to further expansion."

Lyft published an interim evaluation report in a blog post in March, analyzing data from more than 213,000 trips covering over 2.72 million miles. The subsidized electric vehicles consumed an average of about 3,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per day combined, "estimated to save 146 gallons of gasoline per day."

Peninsula Clean Energy receives utilization data monthly and load curve analysis periodically. To date, the agency has identified time periods when providing clean energy to all customers is challenging.

"We may need to explore alternatives to avoid having users do large-scale fast charging during those periods," Kobernick said. Alternatives could include off-peak charging incentives or battery swapping, he said.

Peninsula Clean Energy is also conducting a managed charging pilot for residential customers who charge at home. This effort is conducted in collaboration with EV Energy, and the results will ultimately be shared with the University of California, Davis.

"We want to conduct our own analysis, and we also want to share data with academic partners interested in energy and economic research so they can conduct independent analyses," Kobernick said.